A Fine American passes...

[JP Heintzman]

If there was ever an argument made for the definiion of "Hero", this fine American would be it.......JP



You're an 18 or 19 year old kid. You're critically wounded and dying in the jungle

in the I Drang Valley , 11-14-1965. Landing Zone X-ray , Vietnam . Your Infantry

Unit is outnumbered 8 - 1, and the enemy fire is so intense, from 100 or 200 yards away, that your own Infantry Commander has ordered the Medi-Vac helicopters to stop coming in.



You're lying there, listening to the enemy machine guns, and you know you're not getting out. Your family is 1/2 way around the world, 12,000 miles away, and you'll never see them again. As the world starts to fade in and out, you know this is the day.



Then, over the machine gun noise, you faintly hear that distinctive sound of a

helicopter, and you look up to see a Huey, but it doesn't seem real, because there

are no Medi-Vac markings are on it.



Ed Freeman is coming for you. He's not a Medi-Vac pilot, so it's not his job, but

he's flying his UH-1 Huey helicopter down into the machine gun fire, after the

Medi-Vac choppers were ordered not to come. He's coming anyway.



He lands in the middle of it all, then sits there absorbing the heavy machine gun

fire. They load more wounded soldiers on board the now bullet riddled helicopter.

Then he flies you up and out through the gunfire ... to the Doctors and Nurses ...

and life.



And, he kept coming back ... 13 more times ... and took about 30 of your buddies

who would never have never made it otherwise. Medal of Honor Recipient Ed Freeman died last Wednesday at the age of 80, in Boise , ID ......May God rest his soul...

 

[Scott Hammer TOXIC]

There's a special place in heaven with his name on it. RIP.



TOXIC

 

[firedog978]

Amen!

 

[Ken Sabin]

ATTENTION ON DECK !!!!!!!!!!!!



There's a hero on board !

 

[Marty Klein]

He secured his place in heaven 43 years ago. Climb to Glory Ed.

 

[Greg Meyer]

God has welcomed home a man of honor...

 

[Texas Transplant]

Not much more can be said, than some of the tributes given above.



Tex

 

[Chris Castineira]

God Bless him.

CHRIS

 

[fatrap]

People like him make me proud to be an American. RIP.

fatrap

 

[Bruce Freeman]

I wish we had been related.

Rest In Peace

BF

 

[Bill McElroy]

Unbelievable GUTS!! Was he the guy that Greg Kinnear played in the Mel Gibson flick: "We were Soldiers"??



Update:....He was Greg Kinnear's Wing Man in that movie....Ed "Too Tall" Freeman...played by Mark McCracken.



A C&P from the web...





By the time the Korean War broke out, Ed Freeman was a master sergeant in the Army Engineers, but he fought in Korea as an infantryman.

He took part in the bloody battle of Pork Chop Hill and was given a battlefield commission, which had the added advantage of making him eligible to fly, a dream of his since childhood. But flight school turned him down because of his height: At six foot four, he was

 

[Randy Walls]

Wow, there are few guys like him in the world. Hate to lose one in todays world either.



RIP!



Randy!

 

[Jody Woodruff]

RIP "Too Tall"



The book "We Were Soldiers Once and Young" is an excellent read about the battle of the I Drang. It was written by Lt. General Harold Moore and was obviously the basis of Mel Gibson's movie. The movie was good but the book is great.